The judges started in Minnesota and Seattle where, to my dismay, the local population came out and showed how much of a talent void exists there. Granted the producers edited the episodes to highlight the saddest of the sad but these places seemed to give them plenty to work with.

Let’s start with Minneapolis and the only thing worth looking at.

Short little Charro girl. She must have been about 5 feet flat with Shakira hair and beautiful teeth (I don’t know why I notice such things). She was perky, she wasn’t half bad, she had a “I was homeless” story, and she looked downright sexy. In other words, the judges had no choice but to send her through, especially considering Simon’s bulging eyes from the second she walked in.

Then there was Crack Baby who’s story got her a place in the next round. She sounded pretty good so I’ll give her the hat tip.

The military was represented by a sailor who got through after winning an “Idol” contest on his ship.

Then Army Girl showed up and I have such a big problem with her wearing the cammies. That and losing any microbe of bearing she migh possess as she flipped out after the audition. Excited is one thing but epileptic seizure in uniform is another.

Jewel was there as part of the judging and I didn’t realize she was so pretty.

She was little harsh at times but I couldn’t get over how the Hollywood machine had turned her from beatnik average girl into pretty damn good-looking starlet.

Let’s see, Cowboy joke with what appeared to be a toy hat…

… couldn’t rope a note nor ride a song for 8 seconds if his life depended on it. The saddest part was he didn’t realize this. Pain.

Of course the fat, obnoxious, thoroughly-convinced-she-can-sing sasquach had to make an appearance.

She had raccoon eyes, a variety of chins tucked under her outer one, and despite her degree in vocalization she claimed to have, sounded pretty much like she looked. Train wreck.

Fat girl channeling the Cowardly Lion was a bit of entertainment but only as comic relief.

At least more than the montage of people forgetting their lines. That was some kind of punishment for those of us that, despite what every cell in our bodies is telling us to the contrary, still tune in and expose ourselves to toxic levels of this show.

One little bit of nasty that continued to entertain though was locking the right hand side of the exit door. What more humiliating moment than being laughed off the stage and then pushing on a locked door in an attempt to salvage some dignity only to be stopped cold?

Seattle auditions were no better. In fact, they were worse.

Let’s begin by what has to be close to the winner of the all-time train wreck award.

Fat. Dressed using a hurricane. No bra. Bleached hair bobbed and fried. Jacked teeth. Dork glasses. Massive amounts of blood red lipstick. A laugh that sounded like a monkey in a blender.

The talent was much worse, only rivaled by the personality.

Then Mom comes in and she is a much older replica of her disaster of a daughter except she has black hair.

Everything else is pretty much the same if not worse.

Could someone explain puffy-arm girl? She seemed to have a normal head and neck but her arms were these bloated, puffy sausages which were made worse by the pink leotard membrane she was using to hold the nasty in, and not doing a very good job. I have to agree with Simon, they looked sunburned but that was not the most disturbing aspect. I think we all knew what Simon meant.

OK, let’s move onto disturbing robot boy.

This guy lives someplace else, planet-wise. How this uber-logical computer programmer who represents an exaggeration of every cliché known to man when it comes to computer nerds with a complete lack of social skills, thought he could sing is confusing. I mean, logic alone which he seems to praise would dictate he should at least be aware of his lack of musical talent.

He had a painful look on his face when he tried to sing, mirrored by anyone who listening. He was very very very odd to say the least.

When Simon quipped “What the bloody hell was that?” he logically replied flatly, “That was me.”

Then he continued the logic after an awkward silence, “You didn’t like it. It was not good.” It was more of a statement that a question which made it all that much more funny.

When he was done, he went out and had what had to be one of the funniest moments on all of the Idol shows. Ryan Seacrest just stared at him and he uncomfortably stared off into space for many long, painful seconds before saying “That’s pretty much all I have to say about that.” Good Lord, this guy WAS Forrest Gump!

It’s good to see that AI is even giving retarded people their shot and not exploiting them for amusement. There was a guy with bulging eyes…

… who Simon compared to a jungle animal with enormous eyes who befriended a fat retarded guy.

They made quite a smashing couple. As you may have guessed, neither made it to Hollywood.

There was one moment I had been waiting for over the years. One of the idiots who happened to be trying to do a Taylor Hicks hitch ride crossed the line after being dismissed and approached the judges.

This moron was a hair dresser and got it in his very tiny mind that Simon needed gel in his hair. As he approached the table, a couple of rather large gentlemen shot out from off camera and escorted him out of the room. I’m sure this isn’t the first time something like this occurred.

The episode ended with Redheaded Sasquach with a few protruding teeth trying to hit notes he shouldn’t even think about.

Predictably, he got pissed and challenged Simon to coach him if he thought he was so great but again, predictably, Simon passed.

OK, “freak” might be a little harsh since she could sing and had no way to control her height, other than being 6’4” and wearing three inch heels. In a promo they showed Paula standing next to her and it was scary.

I want to end on a good note, though. There were this brother and sister team who were Indian (dot not feather). They were both extremely talented and I was glad to see they both went through. The boy sounded like Stevie Wonder and had this huge endearing smile.

The girl was beautiful which caught my attention because I had never really seen an Indian woman who I thought was really attractive by Western standards.

I know how bad and shallow that sounds but I just have never had much of an attraction to the Indian culture, even those that are beautiful by their culture’s standards.

I THOUGHT there had been another, a woman named Charlotte Lewis who was in The Golden Child, but upon further investigation (thanks IMDB), it ends up she had an Irish mother and Iraqi-Chilean father. Damn, Jason, not even close.

But this girl was really pretty and talented so I was happy to see her go to the next round.

OK, so there you have it. A shallow post about a shallow show, at least the first few episodes. Will I watch the entire season? Hell yeah and while the first few are entertaining if only for the freak factor, I’m finding myself anticipating the true talent portion and the drama of the competition.